Danger Agents - Competitive Spy Roleplaying

[Zak Arntson]

Okay, so tonight I'm going to try out some d20 Spycraft. I'll let y'all know how it goes. Until then, I've been thinking about how I would design a spy game. So here it is:

Setup
GM, some players, a handful of six-sided dice. Pencil and paper, and maybe a bunch of tokens to keep track of points (or scratch paper).

Agency
Before the game starts, your group should decide whether they are all on the same team or opposing teams. Each team is called an Agency. This is mostly for flavor, and to coordinate proper challenges.

Agents
Each player's character is a secret agent. Agents are really simple to create. An agent gets an Agency and a Codename. Codenames can be anything from a phrase (Red Five) to a number (019) to a normal name (Patrick McGoohan). Nobody (not even you) knows your agent's birthname.

Each agent has three different scores: Action, Gadgets and Style. You get 10 points to distribute among them, and a score cannot be lower than 2. Now, each score gets a Signature. This is an action, phrase, or fact that specializes your agent. Red Five's Signatures might be Action: Shatters all glass, Gadgets: Super-gadget motorcycle, Style: Smokes anywhere.

Starting the Mission
The GM tells the players the mission, and how many mission points it requires to complete. A good number (off the top of my head) is 50. Each player then, in no more than 50 words, describes how her agent is inserted into the mission.

Playing the Game
The goal of the game is to be the agent with the most points when the mission is over.

During play, the GM or an agent can initiate a roll. The player decides which score to use and declares a goal related to that goal. Then the player rolls ONE die. You cannot initiate an Event with a score that is at zero.

Event: If no matching dice are rolled, the player's announced event succeeds. This can be challenged. Events must fall under the category of Action, Gadgets or Style.

The event cannot complete the mission goal! Only drive towards it. The mission will be ended in the next section.

Complication: If any dice (except sixes) match, the action doesn't work as desired and is a complication. Complications cannot be challenged this way. A complication cannot result in the death of an agent unless that agent has scores of all zeroes.

Challenge: You (as GM or Player) may challenge a rolled event. To do this, add a complication to the event (using one of the three scores as a base for the event). Then take the dice rolled, add one more die to that, and roll them. Go back up and see if it's an Event or Complication.

Special Sixes Rule: Any sixes you roll do not count towards matches. In fact, if someone challenges an Event that has sixes, it costs a point (see below).

Mission Points: If the Event remains unchallenged, you get mission points equal to the number of sixes you rolled. If you rolled any sixes, you add ONE point to the score you used to describe the event. When the total of all the players' mission points equals the set goal, the mission is over. GMs can get mission points, too.

Spending Points: You can spend score points as follows: After a roll is made, you can spend a point from a score to cause the following: Remove a die, add a die (rolling it right then), reroll an existing die, or challenge an event roll with sixes. Challenging an event roll with no sixes is free of cost. The GM has no scores and cannot spend points.

Earning Points: You can spend a five mission points to increase a score by one point. Scores cannot be increased above the maximum (your maximum is the starting amount). You cannot spend mission points during an event/challenge round. The GM cannot spend mission points. These spent mission points do not count towards ending the game. They are lost forever.

Signature: Once you have earned 10 mission points, you can use your Signature in an event. Put a checkmark next to this signature, announce the event, and you roll the dice. Matches are ignored. The only way this event can be challenged is if another player uses her Signature. You do not lose these 10 mission points. You can only use a Signature once during the game (hence the checkmark).

Agent Death: If an agent's scores are all zero, any complication that agent rolls results in death. A new agent is created, and inserted into the mission with half the mission points of the dead agent.

Ending the Game
Once everyone's mission points total to 50 (or whatever the goal is), the mission is over. This is player A + player B + GM's mission points.

When the mission is over, the game goes into an overdrive mode. If the GM has the most mission points, the players must abort the mission. Otherwise, whichever player has the most mission points, that player must successfully complete her agent's mission, and receives the following benefits: She can challenge any event free of cost, and nobody can challenge her events (sixes or otherwise) without spending a score point.

The game officially ends with the winning player's final goal-completing event, or the GM narrates the failure (baddies escape, gem is destroyed, etc).

[Zak Arntson]

I completely spaced on what makes a good secret agent story: All the relationships! Ties, double-crosses and so on. So, here is the meat of what makes plaing Danger Agents more than an exercise in special effects:

Bonds
Instead of instantiating an Event, a player can try to form a Bond with a character (whether the character is a PC, established NPC or an NPC invented on the spot by the Bond-creating player).

Creating a Bond
Trying to create a Bond works like creating an Event. The player states the desired outcome, and the type of Bond, and rolls a die. This Bond can be Challenged as per normal, and the challenger, keeping the intended PC/NPC to be Bonded also gives a desired outcome, a different type of Bond and rolls.

A Complication that results from a Bond roll means that the previously declared Bond goes ahead as planned.

When a Bond is created, you write the Bond down, its type, the target character and the highest number rolled on the last dice roll.

Using a Bond
You can help your roll by invoking a Bond. By spending a Bond point, you incorporate the relationship in the Event (or Challenge) just as you can spend a score point to modify a roll.

Empty Bonds
When a Bond reaches zero points, you can refill it by changing its type with a successful Bond creation.

Maximum Bonds
A single player may not create a new Bond if their Bonds' points total

Bond Types
A Bond's type can be any kind of relationship. Here are some good words: sibling, ex-husband, lover, childhood friends, in-law, murdered my family, slept with my wife, kidnapped my son. Changing a Bond's type adds interest: How does one go from Lover to Kidnapped my Son?

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The fact that you can get many new points by instantiating a Bond is a reward system. Rather than spend all their time wowing each other with whiz-bang action and suave style, they actually develop romances and rivalries and such.

Hopefully this adds the "oomph" missing from the rules, yes?

[Rob MacDougall]

"Danger Agents" is a cute name, but given your second post, I really think this game should be called "Bond."

For obvious reasons.

[John Harper]

Yes, Zak. You should definitely change the name. For, um... good reasons. I am totally unbiased, too. Just... don't look at my sig.

Also, I really dig the Bond stuff. I do think it's the oomph that the game needed.

[Loki]

This sounds like a very cool game. Do you have an example of play? I'd like to see how the Event-Challenge-Complication cycle works, and how the endgame works.

[Grex]

Quick thought: Could this be done by modifying InSpectres? The structure seems similar, and Mission Points remind me of Franchise Dice, sorta. Bonds could be assigned in Confessionals (Debriefings?) and add Cool, or just give bonuses to Contact rolls.

Am I completely off here?

[John Harper]

It reminds me of InSpectres a bit, too. And that's a good thing.

Zak, you say that the player rolls ONE die. How do I get any "matching dice" if I roll one die? Matching to what? It seems like there's some text missing up there somewhere, or I'm just dense.

[Zak Arntson]

Zak, you say that the player rolls ONE die. How do I get any "matching dice" if I roll one die? Matching to what? It seems like there's some text missing up there somewhere, or I'm just dense.

If you roll one die, you are automatically successful unless someone challenges you. That part needs to be playtested, since it almost guarantees a challenge. I may set the initial roll to two dice (with sixes being special, that's a 14% chance to fail with the initial roll).

Grex, I'm not sure about modifying InSpectres. I'd have to reread that one. I haven't played it in over a year. This game stresses all participants competing against each other, and creating exciting relationships.

Loki, I have an example scribbled down on paper that's now in the recycle bin. I'll try and come up with something later this week, though.

Thanks, all, for checking it out. I'm guessing it's rough in places, but it's my kind of spy game. I'm going to play some Spycraft tonight (making my character feels like filling out a tax form), so hopefully I haven't ruined my enjoyment by writing the spy game I want to play.

[John Harper]

Okay, so you are always successful unless challenged. I get it now. You only bother to roll the single die to see if it's a six or not.